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Report Builder is a ClickOnce application that you can launch from SQL Server Report Manager site. It allows you or your clients to easily set up a "User Configurable Report". SQL Server 2005 came with Report Builder 1.0. With SQL Server 2008, you can choose between Report Builder 1.0 or Report Builder 2.0.
One of the limitations of Report Builder 1.0 is that you cannot drag and drop a field read form data base into a text box, you can only do that to a table or matrix. This problem is fixed in Report Builder 2.0 and that was the reason recently we decided to use Report Builder 2.0 in our project.
The other benefits that you get from Report Builder 2.0 compared with Report Builder 1.0 are:
- The look and feel is more like other Microsoft Office 2007 products
- There is added support for data visualizations including charts and gauges and
- There is a capability to export to Microsoft office Word format.
One other new feature in Report Builder 2.0 is that in addition to being able to run as ClickOnce application from Report Manger, it can also be installed and run as a stand alone application not requiring Report Manager.
You can get Report Builder 2.0 from here.
To set Report Builder 2.0 to be the default report builder on Report Manager, after installing SQL Server 2008, you need to also install SQL server 2008 Service Pack 1.0 which is available from here. Then follow the instructions here.
The full list of comparative features between Report Builder 1.0, Report Builder 2.0 and Report Designer in BIDS (Business Intelligence Development Studio) 2008 is listed here.
